The Toro Company, the assignee of this invention, has long manufactured and sold various powered implements, known as Sand Pros.COPYRGT., which are used on golf courses for grooming and smoothing the sand found in the sandtraps. A typical eighteen hole golf course will have a substantial amount of area covered by the sandtraps. Accordingly, a machine like the Sand Pro.COPYRGT., which is powered and carries an operator so as to be driven over the surface of the sandtraps, greatly eases the task of grooming and smoothing the sand.The Sand Pro.COPYRGT. includes a wheeled traction unit specifically designed for traveling over a sand surface without bogging down in the sand.
The traction unit of the Sand Pro.COPYRGT. tows a rake assembly which works the sand to groom and smooth it. The rake assembly previously sold by Toro consists of a plurality of planar finishing rakes each having a serrated lower edge. The finishing rakes are located in two transverse rows that extend across the width of the machine with the individual rakes in each row being transversely spaced apart from the adjacent rakes in that same row. The rakes in the rear row are transversely staggered relative to the rakes in the front row to span the gaps between the rakes in the front row so that the entire swath of sand encountered by the rake assembly is groomed and smoothed without leaving any ungroomed windrows. The finishing rakes are suspended from a frame of the rake assembly so that in a working position of the rake assembly so that in a finishing rakes simply causes them to drag along in the sand with their serrated lower edges grooming and smoothing the sand as the traction unit moves forward.
More recently, a different rake assembly has been offered by Smithco for use on Sand Pro.COPYRGT. type machines. The Smithco rake assembly is similar to the Toro rake assembly described above as it includes a plurality of finishing rakes having serrated lower edges. However, the Smithco rake assembly also includes a plurality of downwardly extending, prong type scarifying teeth and one or more trowel plates located on the rake frame in advance of the finishing rakes. Each trowel plate is fixed to the rake frame to be located between the scarifying teeth and the finishing rakes. Each trowel plate includes a smooth lower edge, comprised of a horizontal flange, for contacting and smoothing the sand.
The scarifying teeth used on the Smithco rake assembly comprise bolts or pins that include a threaded upper end which is fixed to the rake frame by tightening various attachment nut(s). One difficulty with the Smithco rake assembly is that vertical adjustment of the scarifying teeth is made purely by adjusting each individual scarifying tooth up or down relative to the rake frame. This means that the attachment nut(s) for each tooth have to be loosened, the tooth has to be moved up or down a desired amount, and then the attachment nut(s) have to be retightened while the tooth is held in its adjusted position. Because a large number of scarifying teeth are located on the rake frame, this becomes a laborious and time-consuming process. In addition, it is difficult to be entirely consistent in how far up or down all of the individual teeth have been adjusted. Thus, the lower ends of the scarifying teeth may end up being at slightly different elevations after an adjustment is made.
Another difficulty with the Smithco rake assembly is that the scarifying teeth quickly become covered with dirt and water in the outdoor environment in which these machines are designed to operate. Thus, the attachment nuts used to secure the scarifying teeth quickly become hard to loosen due to corrosion and similar factors. Coupled with the previously noted need to adjust each tooth individually, this has meant as a practical matter that the height of the scarifying teeth are not adjusted once they are initially set. It is simply too difficult and time-consuming to readjust the teeth. Thus, the operator tends to leave the teeth in their initial position where they were positioned when the rake assembly was originally set up and is not tempted to adjust these teeth even though, on occasion, that would be desirable, i.e. the conditions of the sand in the sandtraps would otherwise warrant adjusting how aggressively the teeth engage the sand.